An Actors Illness
Act I
The smell of frozen smog told me piracy was dead. I got out of my bed, and it was already half past three. I took a right from my bedroom to the restroom, stared at the picture of Captain Ivory over the toilet, and pissed on it. The man in the poster, now stained yellow, pointed behind me to the hallway, his eyes the same as mine. The narrow door opened almost directly into a wall. The door closed behind me as I stepped through and walked to the kitchen. The hallway was long and empty, except for a framed autograph returned by a fan. I looked behind me at the rusty skyscrapers in the window and kept moving.
On top of the counter was my cracked television, and it told me that this morning, at 5:30, they found the girl. I tried to go to the next channel, but the touchscreen was broken. After much frustration, I decided I might as well make breakfast. I got out the milk and quickly put it away after seeing it was already chunky. My cat lay still on the couch beside me. It made no sound and did not move or purr, even after being pet. My remote was on the ground in the kitchen, and one of my old movies came on the TV out of nowhere, so I ran to the kitchen to grab the remote and turn it off. After clicking it several times, I finally got it to turn off and placed the remote on the table. I walked through my empty hallway to the freezer to get some waffles, but they were brittle and collapsed in my hands. Before I could eat the crumbs, I heard a knock at the door.
It was my landlord; Lukas Xandalier. He was a very tall man and had the fat of a sumo wrestler and a scar running from his forehead to his collarbone. He had dark short hair and wore a buttoned shirt half open to see his chest hair. He turned himself sideways and leaned down to get himself through the doorway and hung his hat on my coat rack. He could barely fit in the hallway, and he pushed himself so close to me I thought I would be crushed.
“Hello, Mr. Xandalier. Funny seeing you today. Can I get you anything?” All I could see was his chest. I took a few steps back and almost tripped on my chair.
“Coffee is all. Thank you, Mr. Cape.” He stared down at me before looking over my shoulder and silently looking for any damage I’ve done to the place.
“With pleasure, Mr. Xandalier, with pleasure. Please do sit down, you’re a busy man and I would hate to see you just standing there.” I was now far enough from him to make eye contact. His eyes looked into mine until I couldn’t look anymore. I ran to the kitchen, and he walked slowly to sit on my couch, the floorboards creaking with every step, and my fear that he would fall through the floor grew every time the floor cried out.
“Mr. Cape, you have not paid a dime of what we agreed on. We agreed on six months free and then pay me sixfold. That was our deal, and seeing how you live right now, I can infer you do not intend on following up on your half.”
I put the brewing machine down and felt heavier than the man before me. “Mr. Xandalier, if you could please give me another six months, I promise you’ll get a year's worth of rent.”
“You’ve been living here rent free for six months and haven’t made enough money for even 50%? And to think you were a celebrity. All you are is a child with a beard.” He stared at me so intensely I thought it would break the mug.
“Lukas, you can’t be serious. You know I don’t live that life anymore. I got sold out years ago. Plus, we’re all struggling here, I know you are too. Shouldn’t us downtrodden folks help each other out? I can run a few gigs on your behalf, and you give me a place to live.”
“You are funny to think you can convince me of anything, and funnier of you to think you relate to us. We have lived in this our whole lives, and you only got here once minstrelsy got unpopular. Let me tell you something, I cannot help you. If I helped you, I would be running into a wall. You think I can afford to share? Throwing money to your ‘friends’ was your privilege before you blew your act got stale. Your arrogance is enough reason for me to evict you at this very moment. Pick up your essentials and leave before I do.”
“You can’t be serious-”
“I am very serious” He slammed his fist on the table and the legs broke.
I quickly put my white suit on, grabbed my knife from atop the TV, and ran out of the building, abandoning my temporary residency. My skin quickly bled from the intense cold. I began to head towards the market district. It was already midnight after all. My breath clouded the sky in front of me. My face was red, and small icicles grew on my eyebrows.
Posters covered every window, showing the face of a young girl. She stood in the frame, smirking with her cobwebbed jacket, oblivious to her fate. Standing behind her, the mother, distantly staring at the red and pink layers in her daughter's blonde wolf cut. This girl had gone missing weeks ago and was found dead in an oil tank last night, with no visible signs of decomposition. They said she ran away with a boyfriend in the dead of night, and the rest is history. There were so many drugs in her system her a vampire would overdose. Chatter in the street insisted she was a junkie herself and that she deserved it; others screeched and claimed she was the victim of an evil spirit; others just ignored it and moved through their days. I don’t care too much, but every poster seemed to stare at me accusingly.
People pull me aside as I try to wiggle my way out of the markets. Their sooty hands stained my white shirt black as they reached for me to buy their wares, insisting I'm a millionaire. As I keep walking, they all fall back into hell like the backwash of society.
My socks got sloppy, it was that time of day again, when the septic system is released into the water supply. I began to run as the sewage reaches my heels and fell into my shoes, utterly ruined now. Upon getting to higher ground, I took them off and went inside a tiny wood shack with a skyscraper built on top, where I bought some slip-ons for $15.35. Their soles are flat as wood and have a small hole in them. The owner's rotten breath and collapsing hair were enough to make me rush out of the building, grabbing my change out of the register before he could.
As I began to rush out of the derelict shack, I found $200 in my pocket, and the casino was only a few blocks down. Why shouldn’t I risk it all on Poker? Hold 'em and life are the same after all; if you can hide yourself, you may as well be God, and I am the greatest lie I’ve ever told.
I bumped into hanging effigies of jellyfish, all rubbing on my suit. The air hummed with gasoline and pop music. The speakers on billboards scream to create waves that, for a moment, relieve the senses before inhaling and stealing silence again.
As I walked through the zombified city, I finally found my church: Anonymous Casino. A massive black cathedral shaped like a pirate ship, held by invisible wires and only connected to society by a pillar at the rudder. The lights surrounding the ship’s silhouette changed colors indecisively, and this monetary castle was a favorite of the desperate and wealthy. Beneath the hull were beggars kept hostage by armed men ready to shoot them unless they could beg their losses back. I walked to the heel until one of the beggars came to me and reached for my hands. He claimed he was a prophet and that the casino was home to devils unknown to even God himself, and that I should give my burdens to him, the only man capable of enduring the burden of Sisyphus. I tried to push him away from me, but he reached into my pockets before being shot in the head by one of the men. The man's blood covered my face and ruined my favorite shirt. As I screamed in horror, one of the soldiers came up to me with a rag, doused it in fire, and lightly patted me, burning off the blood and soot. My clothes remained unburdened by the burns, and I felt Black Jack himself come to baptize me.
When I entered the heel cap, the guard came to me and took all my money for a handful of chips. I took the elevator up the pole and into the ship, and as the door opened, I smelled fate herself lending a hand to guide me.
As my clairvoyant high led me to Texas, I realized I had left my watch at home. There were absolutely no clocks in the building, and without them, there was no way to find out where I was in time. I was incredibly frustrated and began yelling in anger. Guards started running to me, likely to trap me with the rabble, not knowing who I was. Before I could be escorted out, a man came up to me, and the guards began to walk away as if I was never there. The man was very short but had fine posture and always stood on his tiptoes. He had the white skin of a plantation owner. His eyes had shiny black holes comparable to pupils, and short, well-groomed curly hair. He wore a green turtleneck and jeans that looked like they were torn from an ad. He wore no belt and no shoes either, and his teeth were perfect and glowed as bright as the sun. The man reached his hands to hold mine and excitedly said: “Hey, you, aren’t you Captain Ivory?”
“No,” I replied, frustrated with the man's enthusiasm. I am not Captain Ivory.
The man raised his eyebrows. “Well, of course you are, I mean, you have the hair, the facial structure, the scars. If you aren’t Captain Ivory, then I must be the devil.”
“I am not Captain Ivory. I am Tim Cape.” I began to walk away from the man, but he ran up to me and insisted we had something to talk about.
“Wait, wait, wait, wait. I’m sorry we got off on the wrong tail, Tim. It's just that my kids love those movies, and I know they would love to see their father standing next to the coolest pirate ever! So, what do you say, care to take a picture?”
I hesitated at first, but I conceded and took the picture. My cooperation made the little man ecstatic. He pulled out a large box camera from his shirt pocket, and we posed as one. He smiled with extreme enthusiasm, his perfect teeth shining so brightly that the reflection from the lens blinded me. I stared blankly into the camera with my eyes closed, and Captain Ivory stared back.
“Thank you so much. The kids will love it; it’ll just take a while to develop. Look, I’m a busy guy, but could you spare some more of your time? My wife’s sick, and she would be so happy for some big movie star like yourself to come make her life a movie, if you get what I’m saying. She’s just down the road at Anna Marie. I swear it won't take a minute of your totally busy morning.”
I was confused and slightly aggravated, seeing as I'm in “early retirement,” but there was no reason not to go with him. After all, if I didn’t go with him, I would likely just be walking around anyway, staring at products I won’t buy, and trying to find the sun, but there was one thing I needed to do before we left.
“Just let me win a round real quick, then we can be on our way.”
“With pleasure,” The man replied with joy, “We have plenty of time on our hands.”
The man and I walked to the poker table, and the guards greeted us on the way before walking backwards to their barracks. When we got to the table, the man asked to be included. The dealer agreed and kissed the man's hands with reverence. We sat down, and the man began to smile with his mouth closed and pulled his sleeves up. The dealer threw our cards with elegance, and a single tear ran down his cheek. I lifted my cards with confidence and grace, and I had the 3 of spades and the 5 of clubs.
We placed our bets, and the dealer revealed the first 3 in the community: the queen of spades, the ace of hearts, and the 2 of hearts. All I need is a four, and I have a wheel.
The man then proceeded to call, and after more betting, the next card was drawn: The ace of diamonds that glistened in my eyes. I looked over to the man, and he was staring at the dealer with a look of fury, as the dealer began to break down in tears, quivering his lips and gripping his fists. Upon noticing me, the man burst into laughter, and the dealer wiped his eyes and called again. I bet, and the man matched me with rage in his eyes, and we both called, and the dealer took the card off the top of the deck before his shaking hands dropped it on the floor, and he panicked and drew a different card instead. The card he put on the table was the four of spades.
I was ecstatic and went all in. The man exhaled a sigh and then smiled, matching my bet. When he unveiled his cards, the man had an ace of spades and a five of diamonds, three of a kind. I won with a wheel straight. The man began to chuckle before letting me have my money and walking to the exit. He insisted we begin our walk to Anna Marie, and I rubbed his loss in his face, but he just chuckled and insisted he had more than enough. The dealer ran off into the restroom with tears in his eyes and his left leg frozen in place like a bugged video game, and forgot to put away the deck in full. I looked on the floor and saw that the card he had dropped was the 5 of hearts.
We walked out of the casino on the way to Anna Marie, and as the high began to fade, so did my patience. My poor man's shoes paddled the ground, and the arch of my foot throbbed as if every step were on rusty nails. It was impossible to ignore the pollution. The skyscrapers and smokestacks were so tall and dark you couldn’t even see the sky, and the water was quite literally sewage. I don’t even know why you would shower here. Sweat is better for the skin.
We were still walking to Anna Marie. The posters of the girl seemed to stare at the little man now. His short stature made his surroundings stretch like rubber. Street poles became skyscrapers when I looked down at him. He walked with grace and confidence through this pit some call a metropolis, always looking down at nothing, yet always knowing where to turn. Behind us were a group of men following us, but the man told me he didn’t know them. Occasionally, he would glance at me and insist we were almost there. It went like this until the sun went down, before he glanced at me and-
“So, what’s your real name?”
“What?”
“Like your real name, you aren’t just Captain Ivory, are you?”
I stopped in my tracks as he kept walking. I fell silent before charging at him and gnashing:
“You mean to tell me you took me all this way and don’t know my name? I’m god damn Tim Cape. I’m a fucking star, and you don’t know me? You ever been to Hollywood and see that sign? That’s me, I am Hollywood.”
“Chill out, dude, take a deep breath. Everything’s gonna be okay. Just because I don’t know your name doesn’t mean I don’t know you, goddamn.”
“I don’t actually control metal and swordfight on large boats.” I’m trying to keep up, but the wall of cars always blocks my path. The man seems to glide through the traffic with ease, as if there were no cars in the road.
“But clearly that’s all you do. I mean shit who wouldn’t want to be a pirate. Then again, it would be very uncomfortable to keep your teeth dirty like that.” The man then flashed his perfect teeth again, stopping me in my tracks, and turning the city into a self-contained disco ball. He closed his mouth and continued walking until he was almost hit by a car. It came out of nowhere, but he narrowly dodged it; only the tie holding his tux together flew away like a black hole chose it instead. The man paid no mind and did not even flinch or try to grab his tie.
The man took us on a detour through a narrow alleyway, telling me it would be quicker than the sidewalk. The tight walkway was pulsing as merchants in the windows reached out their hands. They were selling a variety of odd goods; in one window would be moonshine with a label drowned in ink, the next a ventriloquist dummy dressed in a vomit-stained tuxedo. The most consistent merchandise were always sandbags.
Crackling from a radio on a trash can was the disembodied voice of Captain Ivory. He cackled and gave fatal words of wisdom “ye mateys beware the clan, they’re an awful breed always coming to hunt pirates like I.” In one of the windows was a child playing with dolls of Ivory villains while his mom slept on the couch beer in hand. I could not remember the names of the captain's pursuers, but I am sure the child did, even through their white masks.
The man continued walking and looked up at the windows to see what was for sale. Upon seeing a window selling ancient pirate artifacts allegedly sourced from the lost pirate city of Libertalia, he knew that was his target. The man was too short to reach the window, so I watched as he searched through the flooded pipes and ground-floor apartments long abandoned in search of a ladder or any kind of large object he could stand upon. He found a ladder hidden under a couch alongside the legless body of a rat. He came out the door and went to the window, ladder in hand, but the store had closed.
Deeply frustrated by this revelation of pointlessness, he decided to go back into the musty apartment and retrieve the dead rat. I could not stomach the stench of it, but his anger concealed that foul smell. I tried to convince him to give it up, but he would not do so and merely shoved me into the wall, where I gave up arguing with him and asked him what his name was. He slicked back his hair, sighed, looked down at his feet.
“I have no name. Shit, I don’t even know my parents' names. They threw me off the plank and into a dump before I was even born, and nobody went diving for me. I lived in alleys like this my whole life, all alone, until I met my wife, who told me I don’t need a name. She was the first person I ever met, and the only person I pay any mind to.”
“What about me, or your kids?”
“Kids? That doesn’t sound right. But you, I already told you what I want from you, my wife likes you. She has always been a fan of the great actor Tim Cape and would pay a fortune to meet him in person before she dies.”
The man took the rat by the tail and threw it at the window, but the window did not break; it bent inwards and then fell out, bouncing on the ground. The man caught the rat and threw it into the sewers, where the smell followed it, and he took the ladder once again and placed it against the wall and climbed up it to get his booty.
He was in the building for what felt like a whole day. There was complete silence, minus a very loud thud. He returned with the only object he claims was worth anything, a pirate hook the size of a football. It contrasted brilliantly with his orange skin. We continued walking in silence after that before he insulted me for having only ever been a pirate.
“I’ve been a superhero pirate, sure, but I’ve also been a gangster, a poet, a vet, and an author. I'm my own coolest character.”
“Clearly not cool enough.” He said as he tried to grab me with his hook hand.
We were no longer in the city since you could see the constellations and the crescent moon. The city was like a snow globe, designed to prevent the moon and stars from impacting man. The glowing dots raced across the sky and were never still. The sky was made a bloody zebra from the endless battle between the stars and space. Realizing how long we had been walking, the man tried to crack up some small talk:
“Why would you look at that? Infinity racing infinity. Flushing the sky red like royalty. Entirely unrelated, but you ever climbed Everest? The kids loved it.”
“Yes, I’ve climbed Everest, and I have sailed the seven seas. Why doesn’t anybody see me here? Oh God, I-”
“Quiet, you're a drag, and if they know it, I know it. Shouldn’t have even asked.” As he said this, the man looked to his left and smirked at nobody.
“No goddammit, I’m not one of those stupid method actors who choose to eat live rats and live in canoes because of some stupid vision. I’m a hardworking American. My grandparents fled the Nazis to make me a success, and all I’ve proven is that I'm a fucking failure.” I looked up at the full moon and was ready to howl.
“Thing is, nobody recognizes you until you are the Captain. If you can believe it, my listening to you is a performance worthy of an Oscar.”
“Shut up.” I reached to see if my knife was with me, but it was not. I must have left it with my watch.
The new barren desert we walked through lacked experience. There were no cacti, no buttes, no canyons, or animals. The ground had the texture of skin and was as pale as my father. We would see ponds in the distance, but they would vanish as we approached. Every step I took with my wooden shoes flaked the skin off my feet. I looked into the distance, and there were many people watching us. The same as the ones before. They stood close together without expression. Standing alongside them was the Anonymous dealer.
A storm began to brew in the distance, a flood of blood and light that broke from the sky. The man did not seem concerned, but he was clearly looking for a retreat. We each looked in the distance, and I saw a cabin in the distance. We scurried to the cabin and as the red water poured on the ground, we rushed up the stairs and narrowly avoided drowning. The cabin was highly unstable, but it could survive the storm.
I rushed inside calmly and laid down on the sofa. My legs were sore and when I took my shoes off, I could feel the skin flaking from my feet. The man stayed outside to try to rescue our stalkers from the storm. I could hear their long-winded paddling on the stairway, and as the man walked in they all followed in single file line. The anonymous dealer stared at me with a look of pure rage, but the others barely even noticed me.
I put my bags on the ground, and the man went to start a fire. He scrounged in cabinets for matches until finding a matchbox under the bed. He then lit a fire, and we all swarmed around it to avoid the cold. The man spoke to them as if he had known them for years, asked if one of them would like to introduce themselves to us.
From this crowd, a figure broke the glass. He was a very tall man, but not as tall as the one I was accustomed to. His hair buzzed, but you could see the brown color it should be. He moved idly and walked like a doll with an invisible person guiding his movements. When the man came up to this man, he asked him his name. He said his name was Mickey, and from there he recited his entire life story. Though wouldn’t think he was alive, given his pale green skin, and how he and everybody with him were dressed like pirates.
“So, what is the best quote you can give our protagonist here?” The man asked Mickey as if he were prompting a machine.
“Acting is a career everybody has, and only the bad ones succeed in it.”
“Thank you, Mickey. Your son would be most pleased with your answer. You won't see him anytime soon, but maybe someday!” The man replied with glee. “Now, continue your story after death.”
He told us it all as if he were reading lines from an invisible script. He told us that his spirit was swallowed up and absorbed by his five children in some Satanic ritual. They crushed his ashes into a dark wine and drank it, absorbing his wisdom and endurance. He controls them like puppets, convinced they have no master, as they make delusions about his purity. When he finished, the man sent him on his way, and Mickey walked backwards and laid with the crowd of dispassionate observers.
We all slept on the floor except the man and me. I slept on the sofa, and him on the bed. As I faded to sleep, the shadow of a young girl stared at me through the window.
We woke up from our slumber. The clocks in this house were all broken, but the man insisted we slept for two days. I looked outside and the storm was still going, but noticeably calmer than before. The group of stalkers from before were nowhere to be seen. We got our things together and opened the door, where I could see the stalkers as small as ants in the distance, still staring at us.
We continued walking through the desert storm, waiting for them to to look away, but they never did. The long hair of the man was the only curtain that blocked the view of our observers, yet they could still see through the grease that glossed our skin.
We began to reflect on what our goal was, and the man insisted that we were going to see his wife, but I lashed out at him.
“No, we are not. Stop giving me this crap, there isn’t gonna be a hospital in the middle of the fucking desert. You’re lying to me, and I know it. What is this nonsense about?”
“What is so complicated about the idea of a hospital in the desert? I mean, y'all Hollywood folks make Westerns over here all the time. Shouldn’t there be a hospital in case you shoot your co-stars?”
“Not how it works, we have cars for a reason.”
“If we did, why are we walking?” The man chuckled and looked away from me.
“What?” I stopped and clenched my fists so tight they could break diamonds.
“Why are we even walking? I’m sure if we drove, we would be there by now.” The man bit his lips and closed his eyes as if he knew that he made a stupid call and was simply trying to conceal his anger with a smile. He took a deep breath and then exhaled, now laughing so hard he fell to the ground. I began to trip on the wind trying to keep up.
“Yeah, why are we walking? Shit, I coulda just gone right on back home the second that store closed, but I stuck around because I knew you were gonna get your ass killed if I weren’t there, and besides, maybe your wife really does need me, and I can meet my first fan besides your dumbass.” The man then pointed up at the sky and our observers were circling us in the air like vultures, but the man waved his finger in the air and we continued.
“I wish we could be like them, but unfortunately, we’re bound to the land, and your lard ass is too broke for a car, and I left mine at the house. I know you are lying, by the way. You trusted me because you couldn't help it. I'm a charismatic guy after all,” He said as he wrapped his lanky arms around me, now serious in his tone. “But that doesn’t matter now, I said the hospital was nearby. Clearly, you weren’t listening.”
“Shut up! You’re as dead as you wife.” I reached for my knife again.
“Yay, there we go. Sounded just like Captain Ivory there. You even unsheathed your famous swor- oh wait.” Shortly after saying this, he pulled my knife out of his pocket.
“I have your sword now. Can I keep it? It’s a real beauty, I’m more of a fork guy, but this blade is real nice.”
Seeing this sudden impossibility, I tore the man's arm off of me and lunged at him, but the man flicked Tim’s chest and kept walking. The man grunted, swiped off some sweat on his forehead, and straightened his white tuxedo. He looked back at Tim, squinted, and walked away. He crushed the now wheezing and coughing Earth, whose hairs raised themselves upward, and whose goosebumps formed mountains, some of which erupted like volcano pimples. Yellow pus flowed like lava to create a world unknown. This once barren waste was now a jungle.
The man’s lean and muscular body stood above it all, despite being on even ground. His suit fell to the ground, and he looked out at the horizon and raised his arms to a T, unfolded his palms as if waiting for nails, and then putting his left hand straight in the air and his right to his face, revealing his eye from the crevices of his fingers. His hair flowed in the air, its blonde color reflecting glowing shades of pink and red over the earth’s flesh. The man rose in the air, still in position, and flexed his chest. The rusty crust on his back flaked away like ashes, revealing glistening translucent flesh underneath. The wind howled the rest away in one brush and revealed the man's new skin. It shone as brightly as his teeth, and the city, now but a speck of light, reflected the light onto Tim alone, revealing to the man his own purpose. Tim could see none of this; he was shaking and struggling to breathe, curling on the ground like a centipede in defense.
“Tim, Tim, TIM!” The man had clearly been trying to wake him up for a while. It's been months. I've been wandering around trying to get the cops, but it doesn’t seem like they come out around this jungle. Come on, though. We’re almost at Anna Marie, though. Just a few steps away.” He then slowly unfolded his arms and pointed at the sun.
As Tim stood up, he looked at the man and then the sun, where the words “ANNA MARIE HOSPITAL” were engraved in black.
“What are you?” Tim asked the man, blocking the sun with his hands.
“I am.” The man replied with an uncertain tone.
As Tim walked to the hospital, his legs wobbled like toothpicks holding a whale, and his feet slammed against the ground, his shoes finally ground to dust. The hospital fell from the sky. It was a gigantic being not unlike the man he was with. It was inconceivable, as its speed blurred the clouds and froze the blazing stars. Tim stared in awe of this falling god as the man floated like a jellyfish behind him. Our stalkers now stood still in the air and simply watched as the building sank in the air. The hospital's landing cracked the ground like glass and blew the flying out of the air, now lying beaten on the ground, clapping and cheering for Tim. The hospital was still blurry, and for a moment I could hear the girl from the posters whispering to me. Tim took two steps on the stairs that rose from the ground and walked to the door as the translucent man stared at him, smiling and holding the door open for Tim to enter. His glowing teeth blinded Tim as the man leaned down and smiled so Tim could see those pearly whites for himself. He stepped inside, and there was nobody to recognize him.
End of Act 1.
Your atmosphere is amazing, hazy and dreary, yet with something beneath everything, something I cannot exactly name, but it only adds to the sense of dread. I love the dialogue as well, it’s surreal and reminds of both Pirandello or Ionesco. Looking forward to the upcoming Acts.
I just read An Actors Illness. I will reflect on it now. From the point of view of technique and the surreal density of the imagery it is full of virtuosity. I'm twenty-eight now so I don't know how that compares to your age, but this nonetheless feels like the striking, vibrant energy of an original perhaps young thinker. I agree with the particular images Ellis has pointed out as being important. It really reads like a film; the final paragraph describes a man floating “like a jellyfish behind him"; what a palpable image. “The hospital fell from the sky,” too.